Unique performance from Shawlands Academy composers

The pupils have been working with professional group Red Note Ensemble (above)

Roy Beers

Published:10:00Friday 23 June 2017

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Talented young Shawlands Academy first-time music composers will end a masterclass project with a unique performance on Friday.

Higher and Advanced Higher students with music teacher Maria Kelly have been working on the New Music Makers workshop run by professional group Red Note Ensemble.

And this week they will hear the music they have written performed by a group of leading musicians.

Red Note’s performing ensemble is “drawn from the deep talent pool of Scottish new music expertise, and counts among its players some of the very finest performers working in the UK today”.

The sessions, led by Red Note’s John Harris, have aimed to give the 20 pupils an insight into some of the ideas and compositional techniques used by professional composers.

And on Friday the music they have created will be performed at an informal concert by Red Note musicians.

Mr Harris said: “Writing music is as personal and as important as creating new pictures or new stories, or any of the other myriad ways that young people stand for themselves, make their mark and make their own voices heard in the world. “

He added: “It’s an amazing thing watching and helping them to create their own music, in their own styles, with their own ideas.”

Red Note Ensemble is dedicated to developing and performing contemporary music to the highest standards, and taking new music out to audiences around and beyond Scotland.

The ensemble are Associate Contemporary Ensemble at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, an Associate Company of the Traverse Theatre, and also an Associate Ensemble of the Sound Festival Aberdeen.